I don't know if anyone caught the weather forecast after the ten o'clock news last night, but the weatherman opened with a wonderful phrase, talking about
"anti-cyclonic gloom". Apparantly this has something to do with high pressure and explains why I can't read without the lights on at 11am. But it immediately gave me visions of some terrible new form of manic depression.
It reminded me of when I was on holiday in Cornwall over the summer and went past a house that was named "Baggywrinkle". Again, I'm sudenly hallucinating, this time about some bizarre creature living in the Cornish countryside.
Just wondered if other people have come across unfamiliar phrases and give them a different meaning to the one intended. Or found random words that spark something in your head.
Katie

Weather forecasters seem to be quite inventive when it comes to new phrases. I don't who invented the description of clouds as 'bubbling up' which was unknown some years ago, but for me it creates a picture of God as some gigantic alchemist standing over a vat with the clouds tumbling over the sides like liquid oxygen.

I can't think of any more at the moment, but this could become a really inspirational thread.

I have to admit to enjoying questioning the pharsiology when the reporter or who ever in an attempt to precis the interview or sound more knowledgeable than they are uses a phrase incorectly, perhpas due to inflection or bad punctuation

I have often wondered about newspaper headlines such as :

Mother of Four in crash

bit young to be a mothe risn't she

man stabbed 4 times in the wandsworth area

which part of your body is your wandsworth area

ect etc yes petty I know

Reminds me of: 'she's never been the same since she was shot in the troubles.'

On the weather front (sorry) I love the word mizzle

Nice idea for a thread, Katie.
Dee.

I always remember, many years ago they used to do a slot on the radio where people could send in words they had thought up. The one I remember best was prinkles, to describe the marks left on your face by your pillow.

Gina.

Lovely, Gina.

By complete coincidence, a friend e-mailed me today about The Washington Post's Style Invitational. It's a competition where you take any word from the dictionary and then alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and then supply a new definition. Here are some of the winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Decafalon: The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

The list goes on and on. Anyone got ideas for anymore?
Katie

Those are wonderful, Elspeth!

Not quite the same thing, but in the same neighbourhood:

1. I have long been campaigning to have the verb misunderhear[/'] formally accepted into standard English, as it is distinct from both mishearing someone and misunderstanding someone, a precise form of taken the correct understanding from an incorrectly heard utterance.

2. It's always worth considering the real meanings of various Latin tags that have passed into the language. For example, in a story I'm doing at the moment, one character is convinced that to stand in loco parentis means he has been granted the licence to act as crazy as his parents.

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oops, the italics went a bit skew-whiffy!